The Disease of a New Blogger

So as some of you know, I’m still awestruck by the the fact that I get my OWN corner of the internet in which I get to ramble on about junk and have people read it. So yes, I do post more regularly than most casual bloggers, and I still think that everything is blog worthy (even when it’s reaaally not). But what even less of you know is that I’m kind of obsessed with my blog stats. Can I help it that I want to see who’s looking at my pride and joy?! So among the various ways in which I can see how you got to my humble page, the stats tell me what search engine terms people used to find me. I just had to share the latest one with you: my nails attract dirt. Now, here comes the disturbing part when you’re going to want to call me a complete dork (or think that I have nothing better to do with myself). When I see that someone has used a search engine to get here, I search for the term on google myself just to see…well I don’t really know why I do it. Normally when I do the search I find “Take me to the riot” on the third or fourth page of results. A search for “my nails attract dirt” resulted in having this blog on the first page. The first page! Of all the gross search engine terms that could be used to find my blog as accurately as this did, why “my nails attract dirt”?!

Beauty School Dropout

In a part of the world that claims to be the most advanced in terms of women’s rights (God forbid someone tell a woman that she’s different from a man), the number of gender appropriating commercials are astounding. Even though it is now officially politically incorrect to assume that a woman will go home and do the housework and make dinner, almost every commercial that has anything to do with cleaning products or food targets women whereas most commercials about computers, cars or tools target men. I have no problem calling it like it is. It’s true, many men are interested in lawn mowers and beer so, as much as I hate to admit it, marketing these products to them makes sense. But are food and cleaning products only for women? Are women the only ones that eat or clean? If we really are so advanced when it comes to women’s rights why is it that they’re telling us that even though we can be whatever we want during the day, when we come home at night we still belong in the kitchen? If that’s what a woman wants to do, then of course she’s free to do so but it should hardly be expected of her. Why wouldn’t a male be just as likely to use a Swiffer Wet Jet to mop up that mess on the kitchen floor? At least tell me it will always be expected that women will always be primarily responsible for the household rather than spout crap about the equality of the sexes. Equality=LIES!

Conversely, Grease is my favourite musical. It’s racist and sexist in all the right ways. God bless the simpler (read: politically incorrect) times.

Because I Couldn’t Say It Before

I was always a daddy’s girl, probably because we were so similar. Both of us were quick to get angry, more than willing to share our opinions and had the smallest hands and feet in our family! There was no end to what my dad would do for me just to make me happy. When I found (in the middle of the night no less) that the tooth fairy forgot to pick up my tooth he got out of bed and called her to remind her to come pick it up. After dance rehearsals when I would come home exhausted and sore, he would massage my feet. Before my shows when I was running around frantically trying to get my stuff together, he would always iron my costumes for me, make me a lunch and make sure that he would be able to drive me to the theatre. No matter what happened, he would come to every single performance, not because he felt that he had to, but because he genuinely want to see how my dance had improved. When I told him not to come because I was dancing the same pieces, he would tell me that I was his baby, so of course he would want to come anyway. After a bad test or two, when I would tell him that I have no future and I couldn’t possibly make anything of myself, he would get angry at me for not believing that I could achieve more. He would always remind me of whatever good I had in me. He was the only person who’d want to hug me whether I was sweaty after rehearsal, or sick. He was the only person in my family who told me he loved me in those words.

Almost Plain White Tees

I’m a klutz when it comes to food. I’m a really spilly eater either because I still don’t know how to eat with cutlery or because I’m usually doing two other things while I’m eating so the space between the plate and my mouth becomes difficult to navigate. This is especially unfortunate because I love white t-shirts. If I could wear them all the time I would. They make me feel all sparkly and fresh! But they attract dirt like no other shirt does. This weekend I stained my white tank top with a streak of kajol while I was trying to draw my dance eyes and just today I dropped a bit of chocolate on my white t-shirt. I hate spilling stuff on my clothes. I obsess over stains and I just don’t feel right till they’re gone. This means just one thing; it’s always a good time to invest in Tide.

An Ad-Hoc Campaign

Hopefully yesterday was the last night we’d ever have to wear our diaper baby costumes. As far as costumes go this is by far the worst. It posed a serious tripping hazard, exposed the crotch area to the audience (EW!) and made our backsides look huge . I’m so happy to be out of that onesie. Anyway, now that the last big show of the year is done I’m looking forward to getting my feet back, although a dancer’s feet will never really be her own. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that my toes will always be a shade of grey, my nails will never look right and my skin won’t ever stop peeling. And yes, I do feel the need to tell you the gory details because everyone overlooks the effects of dance on one’s feet. Last year I went to get a pedicure after a show and the aesthetician told me there was something wrong with my feet and that I should get them checked out. It made for one very embarassing pedicure. So this post is playing its part in raising awareness for the plight of dancer feet. It’s not our fault!

Nostos for Utopos

Although I’ve moved around quite a bit, I’ve always felt that India is home. I never really lived there save for a couple of years when I was very young when we lived with my grandparents. I was lucky enough to go to school in Chennai for senior kindergarten and grade 1, and although I had no friends in nursery school, it was generally an enjoyable experience. Every day after school, I would gulp down an afternoon snack and run downstairs for hours of unsupervised play with kids of all ages in the compound. When I went back to the same compound this December for the first time in 11 years, I found that the buildings were all extended forward to cover the huge sandy expanse that I used to play in.

Inevitabilities of Life: Anger, Death and Taxes

So in the spirit of learning from my mistakes and all that junk, I’ve started studying for my final exams a full 10 days before they begin. Although it’s commendable (for me) to start this early, it just made me realize how little I pick up by listening to lectures. I wish so much I was an auditory learner…it would make studying so much easier. It made me wonder though. We learn the most essential things early in life; how to tell time, how to tie laces, how to do basic operations, but no one ever writes that stuff down. Is it that we start losing the ability to remember verbal lessons? Or is it just that the stuff we learn after grade 7 isn’t all that important? I reckon it’s the latter. But don’t worry, I won’t make this another post on the general pointlessness of school these days…I think I drove that point home long ago.

It Takes the K’now How!

I’m missing my last day of school because I’m in bed (or around bed) with what I think is some sort of stomach flu. I can’t help but believe this is me getting my just desserts. A week ago I told a fib about how I was sick to avoid going to a rehearsal I just couldn’t make (believe me, I had no other way out!). Now it’s come back to bite me on the bee-hind. So my sick person diet includes dry toast, water and translucent soups. Except we don’t have any translucent soups. The closest thing to it was minestrone soup, which didn’t sit well with me at all and even worse than the sickness that followed the soup was the taste of the soup itself–a goopy, tomatoey mess that had these weird chewy bits in it. Why can’t they come up with a good somewhat instant soup?!

Essay In, Essay Out

Although I know I’ll regret writing this in the morning when I’m whining about sleep deficit and how much I need a solid night’s sleep to get through the day with minimal feet dragging, I just have to write because it’s been six days, (SIX days!) since I last posted. This just simply isn’t my style! I would fill you all in on the wonderfully interesting things that happened in the last six days, but I can’t speak about anything except for the searing pain of disappointment and angst that paper writing produces. Am I alone on this one? Or does everyone get horribly depressed while writing papers? Papers give me palpitations, from the shortest response paper to the most involved research papers, they all fill me with a sense of dread. After years and years of schooling, I still don’t feel like I know how to write a paper. Why can’t everything flow as freely without structure? Do you REALLY need a thesis to know what I’m talking about? So to all of you writing papers right now, I understand…or at the very least I know how much it sucks.

Aside from that and a recently acquired habit of grinding my teeth while I sleep, all is as it was six days ago.

I Get by With a Little Help From my Friends

Dear Internet,

Sorry for the prolonged vacation but I have a really good excuse. I forgot about two papers. Yes…forgot. As in, what? I don’t have two 3000 word papers due in the next two days…oh crap yes I do. This was followed by frantic flailing and wailing. I ended up getting an extension on one of them, but the other one needed to get done. Long story short, I just finished writing it about an hour ago. And by “I” just finished writing it I really mean “we” just finished writing it. If it wasn’t for two fantastic people (with amazing vocabularies) it would have been another two days late.

What would I ever do without them?

Yours Sincerely,

a sleep deprived but deliriously happy me